iPads, iPads, get your iPads here!
This might be a little difficult to believe, but Apple is foregoing the dramatics and plans to launch a slate of new products “in the next several weeks” via a regular old press release on its website, with no event on the horizon. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and his ‘Power On‘ newsletter, those products are the refreshed iPad Pros, 12.9in iPad Air, Apple Pencils and some Magic Keyboards for those iPads. And we haven’t even gotten to the Macs, yet.
As for those, we will see the new 13- and 15in MacBook Airs kitted with the M3 chip arrive at the same time as the iPad revamp. These might sound like run-of-the-mill ‘filler’ products unworthy of Apple’s attention, but we’d argue that isn’t the case for at least one of these — with the iPad Pro getting its first (major) upgrade since before Silksong was announced. Yikes.
But, as the old saying goes, good things come to those who wait. The 2024 iPad Pro will be outfitted with an OLED display and internally repping Apple’s M3 chipset. That alone would be enough for Apple to throw a party to give these badboys a boost. Apparently, nope. Gurman reckons Apple is going to announce the products on its website “with a series of online videos and marketing campaigns,” sometime in “March or April.”
The PC Master Race is bolstering its ego with a Ghost of Tsushima port
While Xbox might be okay with dolling out its exclusives like a dodgy dude handing out candy, Sony is a little more hesitant to give up those sweet, sweet IPs to other consoles (here’s what we thought of Returnal for PC, by the way). It spent the better part of two years porting over some of those games to PC (and only PC) and the latest fruit of its labour appears to be a Ghost of Tsushima port.
That’s according to @Shpeshal_Nick on Twitter (sorry, X), who posted:
“I’m hearing that we might be getting something about the Ghost of Tsushima PC port pretty soon. Maybe around the 5th?”
Even if the tweet wasn’t coming from a reputable leaker such as Nick, we’d have believed it. As we’ve said, Sony’s been on a bit of a PC port roll, with only a couple of exclusive IPs left to go before Steam is on a similar playing field. But if you’re after proof of Nick’s sources being the real deal; just look at the last time he delved into Sony matters — correctly noting the games that would turn up at the then-next State of Play.
Fingers crossed for a reveal tomorrow, huh, Duncan?
Sony’s SRS-XV800 party speaker
If the idea of spending R10,000 on a Sony speaker didn’t at least make you giggle thanks to the absurdity, we’d recommend keeping on reading. Sony’s SRS-XV800 has come to South Africa and Sony’s got some shilling to do. Fortunately, the speaker’s good enough that we’ll do it for them, showing off the sort of features you can expect after spending four zeroes on a piece of audio equipment.
The first thing you’ll notice is that this thing is massive. The pair of wheels fixed to the speaker’s base should give you a good idea that this isn’t as quite portable as your friend’s JBL he’s always got with him. Sony’s made this thing portable enough to carry with you to a friend’s pool party, but for your sake, we hope you’re the friend with the pool.
It’s got all the usual features of a party speaker, namely; Bluetooth (and even HDMI). What it does differently is the speaker’s built-in Karaoke mode and the 25 hours of battery life that go with it. It’s even IPX4 splash-resistant, so it can enjoy the party from a safe distance. It’ll be loud enough that a safe distance won’t make much of a difference, fortunately. It’s even got a TV Sound Booster that’ll do a decent job of removing any buyer’s remorse you might have (and, uh, make your TV sound a bit better, too).
Doom on a… toothbrush
When Stuff’s own Toby Shapshak returned from MWC 2024 with news of Doom running on a lawnmower, we thought humanity had reached the pinnacle of technology. How wrong we were. Less than a week later, and someone’s managed to get the 1993 first-person shooter running on… an electric toothbrush.
That someone is Aaron Christophel, a YouTuber who took advantage of just about every piece of tech around him coming equipped with some sort of screen, including his toothbrush. That toothbrush is an Evowera Planck Mini — running with just about all the features required to get something like this done; colour display and Wi-Fi.
Christophel used the toothbrush’s OTA functionality and his own ESP32 development board to get the game running here. He even has Bluetooth mouse capabilities going, linking basic forward and backward movements, not being able to make use of the toothbrush’s own sensor data. If you’re left scratching your head wondering why someone would ever play Doom on an electric toothbrush… you’ll never get it.